Essential+Question+2

Although I will take away a lot from this class and learned a lot through the semester, there was perhaps no specific topic I felt as enthusiastic about and interested in than that of bridging the gap between home and school literacies. Looking back, I recall being thrilled to read of code-switching in Wheeler (2006), as well as the concept of contrastive analysis, due to the fact that I had subconsciously utilized these concepts in my field experience prior to student teaching. As I elaborated in my Think Tank post, when I was interning as a tutor at an after-school academic enrichment program, one of my tutees brought a rough draft of an analytical essay to one of our sessions which had been given a temporary failing grade. When I examined the essay, I found that it was full of colloquialisms and vernacular language, all of which were inappropriate to context. Although grammar has always come easily to me – which I accredit to my enthusiasm for reading for pleasure at a young age – I was aware that the student, who hailed from the nearby neighborhoods surrounding Fordham Road, had grown up with this vernacular language and perhaps identified with said language in a deeper way. Thus, I gently explained to this eighth grade student that as he prepared to begin high school, it was in his best interest to remember the difference between formal and informal writing. I then prepared an exercise for the following week in which he was given sentences written in both vernacular and formal language and had to identify which was formal and which was informal. I recall taking special care to never identify this vernacular language as incorrect or inferior in any way, but rather something which was more appropriate in various contexts. This course made me keenly aware of the concepts of code-switching and contrastive analysis; I was proud that I had employed these models in my beginning days of instruction, especially given that this particular instance occurred before I had begun my graduate work in education. Utilizing such techniques are effective ways of bridging the gap between home and school literacies. We as teachers are able to build on the knowledge of the students’ primary discourses, whether this be a language other than English or a vernacular version of the English language; we can then use this to teach students standard written English, while never devaluing or criticizing the language these students initially present.
 * How can we bridge the gap between home and school literacies? **

There are even more ways in which the gap between home and school literacies can be bridged. When revisiting my Think Tank, which had a sharp focus on the writing of Stubbs (2002), I was also reminded of my group members’ suggestions as to how vernacular language might be included in the classroom. Options for doing so include positively reinforcing a students’ vernacular contribution to an in-class discussion by repeating what the student has said in formal English; this appropriates the language based on context while never directly pointing the student’s error out to them. In addition, to inforce pragmatics, instructors might implement an exercise in which students must code-switch; for instance, a student could both write a letter as they would to their principal and a letter as they would to a friend or close family member, then comparing the differences in context and language.

This semester of student teaching, I found myself unable to apply all that I had learned in regard to bridging the gap in my classroom. Next semester, though, I will be student teaching in a high school which hosts many ELLs, thus giving me an opportunity to experiment further with the ideas and analytical tools I learned and reflected on this semester. I will especially keep in mind as I go about doing so that drawing on the students’ primary discourses, rather than negating them, is the best way to bridge the gap between home and school language and literacy. References Stubbs, M. (2002). //Some basic sociolinguistic concepts.// In L. Delpit & J. K. Dowdy. //The skin that we speak.// NYC: The New Press.

Wheeler, R. S., & Swords, R. (2006). //Code-switching: Teaching standard English in urban classrooms//. Urbana, IL: NCTE.